HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation: 

General Electric Company, Evendale, Ohio

 

HHS Designation of Additional Members of the 

Special Exposure Cohort 

under the 

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 

Designating a Class of Employees from 

General Electric Company

Evendale, Ohio
HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation:

General Electric Company, Evendale, Ohio Page 2

I. Designation 

I, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, designate the class 

of employees defined in Section II of this report for addition to the Special Exposure 

Cohort (SEC), as authorized under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program Act of 2000 (EEOICPA), 42 U.S.C. § 7384q.

 __August 31, 2011___ __[Signature on file]___________

Date Kathleen Sebelius

II. Employee Class Definition

All employees of the Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies, 

and their contractors and subcontractors who worked at General 

Electric Co. in Evendale, Ohio, from January 1, 1961 through June 30, 

1970, for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work days, 

occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with 

work days within the parameters established for one or more other 

classes of employees included in the Special Exposure Cohort. 

III. Designation Criteria and Recommendations

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384q, for the class defined in Section II of this report, the 

Secretary has determined, and the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

(Board) has recommended, that

(1) it is not feasible to estimate with sufficient accuracy the radiation dose that the 

class received; and

(2) there is a reasonable likelihood that such radiation dose may have 

endangered the health of members of the class.

The SEC final rule states in 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(1) that it is feasible in two situations 

to estimate the radiation dose that the class received with sufficient accuracy. First, 

the rule states that radiation doses may be estimated with sufficient accuracy if 

NIOSH has established that it has access to sufficient information to estimate the 

maximum radiation dose for every type of cancer for which radiation doses are 

reconstructed that could have been incurred under plausible circumstances by any 

member of the class. Alternatively, radiation doses may be estimated with sufficient 

accuracy if NIOSH has established that it has access to sufficient information to 

estimate the radiation doses of members of the class more precisely than a 

maximum dose estimate.

The Board, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384q, advised the Secretary to designate the 

class as an addition to the SEC in a letter received by the Secretary on August 1, 

2011. 
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IV. Designation Findings

Feasibility of Estimating Radiation Doses with Sufficient Accuracy

The Secretary established the feasibility determination for the class of employees 

covered by this report based upon the findings summarized below.

• NIOSH determined that members of the class evaluated may have received 

internal and external radiation exposures to uranium, thorium, and fission 

product radionuclides during operations such as high-temperature testing of 

refractory metals and alloys, reactor components, and fuel element materials, 

as well as the treatment of thorium-oxide in high-temperature furnaces.

• NIOSH obtained source term information for some specific projects or 

experiments, but lacks the specific information from which to identify the 

operations with the highest exposure potential. This lack of needed specific 

information also applies to the majority of workplace monitoring and source 

term information obtained by NIOSH, which pertains to periods outside the 

1961-1970 Atomic Energy Commission operations period being evaluated. 

NIOSH has not identified sufficient documentation to define and quantify the 

total source term. 

• NIOSH obtained uranium urinalysis results for 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1970; 

and has obtained thorium urinalysis results for 1965, 1966, and 1967. 

NIOSH has determined that the bioassay data are insufficient for 

development of coworker dose distributions for the years with no data. 

NIOSH has found no fission product bioassay monitoring data for the period 

from January 1, 1961 through June 30, 1970.

• NIOSH lacks sufficient information, which includes biological monitoring data, 

sufficient air monitoring information, and sufficient process and radiological 

source information, to allow it to estimate with sufficient accuracy the 

potential internal and external exposures to uranium, thorium, and fission 

product radionuclides for individuals employed at General Electric Company 

(Ohio) during the period from January 1, 1961 through June 30, 1970. 

• NIOSH has obtained individual external monitoring data for approximately 

eleven percent of the claims referred to NIOSH for dose reconstruction. 

NIOSH has found insufficient external monitoring data to allow for estimation 

of external dose for unmonitored energy employees.

• Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(1), NIOSH determined that there is 

insufficient information to either: (1) estimate the maximum radiation dose, for 

every type of cancer for which radiation doses are reconstructed, that could 

have been incurred under plausible circumstances by any member of the 

class; or (2) estimate the radiation doses of members of the class more 

precisely than a maximum dose estimate.
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General Electric Company, Evendale, Ohio Page 4

• NIOSH finds that reconstruction of medical dose is likely to be feasible by 

using claimant-favorable assumptions in the Technical Information Bulletin, 

Dose Reconstruction from Occupationally Related Diagnostic X-Ray 

Procedures (ORAUT-OTIB-0006).

• Although NIOSH found that it is not possible to completely reconstruct 

radiation doses for the proposed class, NIOSH intends to use any internal 

and external monitoring data that may become available (and that can be 

interpreted using existing NIOSH dose reconstruction processes or 

procedures) for an individual claim. Therefore, dose reconstructions for 

individuals employed at General Electric Company (Ohio) during the period 

from January 1, 1961 through June 30, 1970, but who do not qualify for 

inclusion in the SEC, may be performed using these data as appropriate.

• The Board concurred with the NIOSH evaluation and recommended the 

proposed class for addition to the SEC.

 Health Endangerment

The Secretary established the health endangerment determination for the class of 

employees covered by this report based upon the findings summarized below.

(1) Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3), NIOSH established that there is a 

reasonable likelihood that such radiation doses may have endangered the 

health of members of the class. Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(ii), NIOSH 

specified a minimum duration of employment to satisfy this health 

endangerment criterion as “having been employed for a number of work days 

aggregating at least 250 work days within the parameters established for this 

class or in combination with work days within the parameters (excluding 

aggregate work day requirements) established for one or more other classes 

of employees in the Cohort.”

(2) NIOSH did not identify any evidence from the petitioners or from other 

resources that would establish that the class was exposed to radiation during 

a discrete incident likely to have involved exceptionally high-level exposures, 

such as a nuclear criticality incident, as defined under 42 C.F.R. § 

83.13(c)(3)(i). 

(3) The Board concurred with NIOSH’s finding that the health of the class may 

have been endangered and defined the class according to the 250-work day 

requirement specified under 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(ii). 

V. Effect and Effective Date of Designation

The Secretary submits this report on the designation of one additional class to the 

SEC for review by Congress, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 7384l(14)(C)(ii) and 

7384q(c)(2)(A), as amended by the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375 (codified as amended in 

scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.). Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384l(14)(C)(ii), as 
HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation:

General Electric Company, Evendale, Ohio Page 5

amended by the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 

Year 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 42 

U.S.C.), the designation in this report will become effective 30 days after the date of 

this report’s submission to Congress “unless Congress otherwise provides.”

VI. Administrative Review of Designation

The health endangerment determination of the designation provided in this report 

may be subject to an administrative review within HHS, pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 

83.18(a). On the basis of such a review, if the Secretary decides to expand the class 

of employees covered by this designation, the Secretary would transmit a 

supplementary report to Congress providing the expanded employee class definition

and the criteria and findings on which the decision was based.